Social class in Iran

Social classes in Iran

Classes in Iran have been divided up into upper class, propertied middle class, salaried middle class, working class, independent farmers, and rural wage earners. A more recent source divides Iranian classes into upper, middle class (about 32% of the population in 2000), working class (about 45% of the labor force), and lower class. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says 60 percent of his country's wealth is controlled by just 300 people in Iran. The gini coefficient was 0.38 in 2010 and the Human Development Index at 0.749 in 2013.

One of the main objectives of the Iranian revolution was to have no social classes. In the post-revolutionary era, access to political power, an important basis for measuring influence and elite status in prerevolutionary Iran, has continued to be important for ascribing status, even though the composition of the political elite has changed. For 10 years after 1979, gaining entry to the political elite at the national or provincial level depended on having revolutionary credentials, that is, being able to provide evidence of having participated in the demonstrations and other revolutionary activities during 1978–79, and having a reputation for being a good Muslim, that is, attending public prayers and observing Islamic codes of conduct in one’s private life. Revolutionary credentials became less significant for the generation that matured after the early 1990s. Education, especially a college degree, became an informal substitute for revolutionary credentials.

The postrevolutionary upper class consisted of some of the same social groups as the old elite, such as large landowners, industrialists, financiers, and large-scale merchants. Most of these groups have migrated out of Iran and their assets confiscated by the state. A minority of the pre-revolutionary upper class continue to work and live within Iran. For the most part, however, such persons did not occupy positions of political influence. Those with political influence comprised senior clergy, high-ranking bureaucrats, executive officers of public and private corporations and charitable foundations, and wealthy entrepreneurs; none had been part of the pre-revolutionary economic and social elite. Although a reputation for piety and loyalty to the ideals of the Revolution initially was a more important attribute than family or wealth for participation in the post-revolutionary political elite, those who attained politically powerful positions received generous salaries that elevated them to the top income brackets and opened access to multiple legitimate opportunities for acquiring more wealth. The children of the new elite generally have been encouraged to get college educations, and postgraduate degrees from foreign universities have become status symbols since the mid-1990s. These social trends have gradually but informally altered the criteria for recruitment into the political elite: Possessing a university degree and having ties to a prominent religious or revolutionary family have become advantageous in the competition for politically influential positions. As of 2016, Iran had an estimated 3 million "high net worth individuals", 32,000 individuals with a net worth of $3 million, 1,300 multimillionaires with net assets of $10 million or more and four billionaires.

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